SHADOW GAMES: A New View

Things changed on the 145th Street Bridge yesterday. The wind barreling down the Harlem River stung my face and the new buildings going up at the old Bronx Terminal Market cut down my view.

That view of the old Yankee Stadium has been dying for a long time. I just didn’t want to see it because my whole life has been spent believing that everything I love would always be there.

That has spared me the trouble of ever saving anything. I love scoring baseball games, but don’t save scorecards. I love opening packs of baseball cards, but I’m not a collector. I love writing baseball stories, but have never saved any of them.

Maybe I’m too interested in what’s next to care about the past. Or maybe that’s just the easy way out. Looking forward has always given me hope and I don’t look back because Satchel Paige said that something might be gaining on me. He was, of course, correct.

Paige was always correct although his direction was sometimes off. The new Yankee Stadium has been closing on me for a while now, but it wasn’t sneaking up from behind. It was coming head on all along.

I should have seen it during the last night at the old Yankee Stadium and when the team contacted me about a relocation plan and when my seats at the new Yankee Stadium arrived a few weeks ago. But old habits die hard and I continued to focus on what had always been in front of me.

Then standing in the bitter cold on the 145th Street Bridge it struck me that the new view – which includes parts of both Yankee Stadiums – might be even better than the old one.

It won’t last forever so I took something to save: A picture. It’s not as sharp as a memory, but it already has me thinking about keeping my scorecard from Opening Day.